Years ago, one late May, I popped into Michael’s office when he was about to sign the seniors’ diplomas. It was quiet in Olympus; everyone else had left for the day. He told me that he had a system: he’d take each one in turn and consider, for a few long moments, that particular student–what […]
Kitchen demolition is slated for next week, and my job is both simple and formidable: empty the hub of the house of everything in it, down to the last pieces of stray dog kibble in the pantry’s far corner. (Some mouse’s stash, no doubt. Bummer when he comes for it.) Knowing how good Rae will […]
As the U.S. Supreme Court convenes this week to hear oral arguments on a number of important issues, the History Department launched a new elective course titled “Decisive Moments in United States History.” The course is modeled after the popular Science and Society course offered in the Winter Trimester. It is being team taught by […]
Fortuitous intersection: I discovered through my English IV Honors students that those of them in AP Psychology were studying Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory just as freshmen in English read the middle chapters of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. (In these pages, the young girl must find her way back to emotional and psychological wholeness after a brutal sexual assault.)
We all heard this week at Assembly about a faculty member, who, as advisor to a certain esoteric campus activity, was called to an unusual job: chasing down an AWOL school pig named Spike and returning her to the pen after patching the offending gape in the fence. Actually, a second teacher, who lives close […]
All Thacher students have ridden a horse over the ridge (the Nordhoff Ridge that is) and camped in the Sespe at some point during their Thacher career. This past weekend we did a variation of this excursion, also riding, but under full human power – on mountain bikes! Adam Silberberg ’15 joined my twin brother […]
All Thacher students have ridden a horse over the ridge (the Nordhoff Ridge that is) and camped in the Sespe at some point during their Thacher career. This past weekend we did a variation of this excursion, also riding, but under full human power – on mountain bikes! Adam Silberberg (CdeP ’14) joined my twin […]
Early on Thanksgiving Day I participated in a 15k trail race in Topanga Canyon of the Santa Monica Mountains (part of a series of XTERRA trail races in Southern California). While jogging in place and attempting to stay warm prior to the event I was surprised to see a competitor stroll in to the starting […]
I would safely put money on the fact that Thacher is the only school in the country where “new faculty orientation” takes place at 10,000 feet. When I was interviewing for my job in the admission office I heard about the amazing outdoor program with its week-long camping trips that are so central to the […]
This is the longest day of my life. Literally, it is. I left Shanghai this morning (11/7) at 9am, switched planes in Tokyo at 2 pm, arrived to LAX at 7:30 am, attended assembly at 10:45, taught classes from 12:15-1:45, prepped, picked up my kids, went to formal dinner at 6:15, attended a faculty meeting […]